formal archaeological training. The subsequent fifty years were a time of consolidation and stabilization during which the many problems formulated by Worsaae were tackled and few new problems arose. Under Sophus Müller archaeology followed a narrower path. A well-defined scientific methodology was worked out, both in resolving chronologies and in excavation, and at the same time there were stricter demands placed on archaeological work.

Another equally essential archaeological prerequisite was the working out of a well-defined scientific method to build a chronology. It was soon realized that it was possible to establish a “developmental series” of artifacts, which could be divided according to type. When these type series were compared with one another, in the context of closed finds, the main periods could now be subdivided with great accuracy. Formerly, divisions had primarily been based on differences; now they were based on graduated similarities. This method had been developed in Sweden in the 1870s by hans hildebrand and oscar montelius, who gave it its methodologically most precise version under the name of typology. In fact, typology reflected a general methodological tendency in contemporary archaeological research, which was probably one reason why Müller argued so vehemently against it. In his opinion it was nothing new.

The decades around the turn of the nineteenth century thus saw two major achievements: a representative collection was acquired as a result of substantial accessions, and with this collection as well as improved typological methods, chronological systems were finally worked out. Broadly speaking, later research has only added minor chronological adjustments. Bronze Age chronology was the first to find its final version in 1885, followed by Iron Age chronology and, after the turn of the century, Stone Age chronology. Only the Old Stone Age was still inadequately studied, and settlements from the other periods also began to attract scholarly attention. It was now possible to show the distribution over large geographic areas of specific artifact types, and typological studies not of chronological changes but of geographic ones could demonstrate the spread of cultural influences, often from south to north. The distribution areas of specific artifact types were termed culture groups, and these groups were identified with different peoples. One such culture group, the single-grave culture, had been discovered in systematic excavations in Jutland, and it was thought to represent a new immigration from the southeast. Worsaae’s desiderata had now been fulfilled. In this period similar theories of culture were also being worked out in philology, anthropology (the study of races), and ethnography (the culture-group theory in Europe, the Boas school in the United States). There was widespread interest in cultural diffusion, which was linked with theories on migration and so forth. Race, language, and culture were the basic elements. Archaeologists managed to date the Bronze and Iron Age periods by linking finds from the north with those from the south, found in Greece and Egypt. This fundamental progress enabled Sophus Müller to give the first truly comprehensive account, in 1897, of cultural developments in Danish prehistory.

Under Müller and his successor, C. Neergaard (who served from 1921 to 1933), the research milieu was restrictive, and rigid lines of demarcation were drawn in many directions. Müller laid down the objectives that all had to pursue, and he controlled publication rights. Consequently, able assistants with an independent outlook, such as Georg Sarauw and later on Blinkenberg, Johansen, and Hatt, eventually left the museum. Yet considerable results were obtained, and archaeological material was not allowed to remain unpublished. At the end of the nineteenth century several major works by A. P. Madsen, V. Boye, and others were published, and the monograph series “Nordiske Fortidsminder” was begun in 1889 to present important new finds.

When Johannes Brøndsted began lecturing at the University of Copenhagen in 1929 and then—almost by a palace revolution—replaced Neergaard as head of the first department of the National Museum from 1932 to 1933, an open and dynamic research environment was restored, and there was an impressive increase in activity in all areas. Contacts were reestablished